Today I will start a series of blogs for you who are quarantined in your homes with your family and/or friends. I’ve compiled and adapted this material taken from Personality Insights written by Dr. Robert Rohm, along with some of my own insights for families to enjoy a little fun exercise every day. Today, being the first of the series, is about you meeting you and the people you are quarantined with. Let’s begin.
Most people have predictable patterns of behavior – specific personality styles. There are four basic personality types, also known as temperaments. They blend together to create your unique personality. To help you understand why you often feel, think, and act the way you do, I’ll describe for you the Four Temperament Models of Human Behavior. As you read this, think about yourself and, if you want to have some fun, get your family together and each of you talk about which of the four styles is dominant in each of you. Each of us has a dominant style that is then blended with the other subordinate styles that give all of us a unique blend. That unique blend is what makes you, you.
Let me begin by saying that God created each of you with a unique personality that is perfectly suited to fulfill God’s perfect plan for your life. And once you identify your dominant personality type, you can talk with your family and pray about how to use the personality God has given you for the good of yourself, your family, and others. Personalities can be used for either good or bad, so in this series, I’ll coach you on the value of the personality God has given you and how to use it as a Spirit-filled Christian. Your same personality can become out-of-control and be used in ways that may be self-destructive, hurtful to those who love you, and harmful to others. How you use your personality is your choice. Your personality, though, is given to you by God. You have the power to choose its effect.
Let’s talk about you.
You have an internal motor that drives you. It has a fast pace that makes you generally more outgoing, or it has a slow pace that makes you generally more reserved. Everyone is wired differently. If you are an outgoing person, you may tend to speak and move with higher levels of energy. Even your gestures and facial expressions may have more passion then a more reserved individual has. If you are a reserved person you may tend to speak more quietly, less forcefully. Your gestures and facial expressions may seem more guarded than the expressions of a more outgoing individual.
In addition to having a motor that drives you, you also have a compass that determines your activities, which is whether or not you are primarily task-oriented or people-oriented. If you are a task-oriented person, you will tend to focus more on the job to be done or the goal to be accomplished. You will not be highly influenced by the opinions of others. You will be more influenced by logic unless you are more people-oriented. If you are, you will tend to enjoy the company of others and seem to focus on people as being the priority rather than the project-at-hand. You will tend to be more influenced by the opinions of others and more sensitive to the emotions of those around you.
So to understand yourself better, ask yourself and discuss with your family these two questions:
- Am I more outgoing or am I more reserved? If you are more outgoing (or more active), you will be focused on talking things out more than thinking things through. Outgoing people tend to be more fast-paced, involved with others, energetic, optimistic, positive, and enthusiastic. Some outgoing people have more intensity with these characteristics than others, and as a matter of fact, some outgoing people are just barely outgoing while others are the only ones in the room when they are in a crowd. The intensity level varies with reserved (or more passive) people as well. Reserved people are slower-paced, cautious, concerned, patient, steady, and discerning.
- Am I more task-oriented or people-oriented? If you are more task-oriented, your focus will be more on getting things done than the people working with you and how they feel. You will be more interested in how the task will be accomplished, the systems needed to complete the project, the plans and programs need to perform the task, and that any processes involved are efficient and will actually work. If you are people oriented, you will pay more attention to the relationships with those involved, and care more about their emotions, feeling, and the potential friendships. Relationships will matter to you, sometimes more than the task at hand.
Once you answer these two questions for yourself and for your other family members, Make a note of who is outgoing and task oriented, who is outgoing and people oriented, who is reserved and people oriented, and who is reserved and task oriented. Then tomorrow, I’ll have #2 of the Quarantined Family Series.
—————————————-
Pastor Ted Haggard, DD, CHBC, is a Bible teacher with an emphasis on New Testament solutions to the human condition. His Bible teaching is informed by biblical scholarship, Choice Theory (Glasser), Attachment Theory (Johnson), and Behavioral Studies using DISC (Rohm).
This and other blogs by Pastor Ted Haggard are available at http://www.tedhaggardblog.com as a ministry of St. James Church. If you would like to strengthen the ministry of St. James Church and Pastor Ted Haggard by giving, please use the “give” tab at http://www.saintjameschurch.com.